[Review] Hotel de Hallen, Amsterdam

Happy Travel Tuesday! It feels like I write that every second day, the weeks of 2016 are just flying by! I have yet to share the hotel that we stayed in on honeymoon while in Amsterdam. I chose all the other hotels as I like to stay somewhere that reflects the city. Many people prefer a neutral hotel, but I just feel there’s no point travelling far from home if the hotel makes you feel like you could be at home. But, since I’d chosen the rest we went with Mr John’s choice of hotel and he liked the uber modern, yet still quirky, Hotel De Hallen.

On the day we arrived, the was pretty gloomy. In fact, nearly all 5 days that we stayed in Amsterdam were pretty dark and gloomy! I booked to go over Easter, not really realising that Easter was a month earlier this year 🙁 So the weather was FREEZING and HORRIBLE in Amsterdam! I was so darn cold!

De Hallen Hotel is housed in an old train station, shaped like a mini fort. It’s opposite Bellamyplein in De Hallen and conveniently located next to De Food Hallen. De Hallen is a fun space as they have colour themed recreational areas as well as pop art all throughout the hotel. It was fun to start our honeymoon somewhere engaging.

The hotel rooms line a long center hall. On the one evening, they had even driven a smart car into the middle section for an activation of some kind! I couldn’t hear any of the other tenants, which I appreciated. I like privacy and sometimes that extends to noise.

All the recreational areas in the hotel are decorated in a different colour:

We stayed in a simple double room, yet it had everything we were after. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture before I’d actually slept in the bed!). There wasn’t a view to write home about but even though there was construction going on, it was the quietest construction I had ever heard! People had complained about it on Trip Advisor – if two men on a whole site, pushing the odd button is a problem for them, they must never come to a bustling South African building site, LOL!

Of course my favourite part of the hotel was cleanliness. The bathroom was impeccable, with all the glass and porcelain cleaned perfectly (not always the case with European hotels).

The hotel is peaceful and quite at night. It is also around the corner from a food market and the tram lines. This made travelling into central Amsterdam really easy, as well as going to the Van Gogh museum.

Eacah night we would pop out to the Food Hallen so that we could enjoy some different food. There is a restaurant within the hotel, but with the Rand/Euro being so poor when we went over, and South African food being so amazing, we weren’t overly concerned about eating in and rather enjoyed exploring the various cuisines of the Food Hallen next door.

I made myself quite at home at De Hallen, enjoying watching TV in bed. I was also able to do some laundry in the sink and hang it up in the closet. They do have a laundry service, but it’s something crazy like 20 euros a load! Nothing good ol’ sunlight couldn’t sort out for me 😉

I enjoyed our stay at De Hallen. It’s definitely more an older audience and not for students backpacking. Don’t expect to stay and have rauchous parties. In fact, we were rather smug about being far away from the gaudy Red Light District of Amsterdam – only to find ourselves in the heart of Pigalle in Paris! There’s not much of a view to write about, unfortunately, but I still had a great time at the hotel. The staff were also super helpful and professional.